Support for the research
Interviews
Amounts and types of overseas remittances

3
3
4

Chapter 3 Cyclone Jeanne: the first phase

7

Chapter 4 Cyclone Jeanne: the aftermath

9

Chapter 5 Summary of findings: solidarity and assistance

13

The Haitian diaspora, as portrayed

13

Chapter 6 Conclusion

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Bibliography

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Appendices

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Remittances in crises: Haiti

Chapter 1
Introduction
The storm
Tropical Storm Jean, or ‘cyclone Jeanne’ as it is referred to in
Haiti, brought rains that inundated the coastal plane of
Artibonite Department, and caused monumental damage in the
country’s third largest city, Gonaives. By most estimates,
between 17 and 19 September 2004, the storm killed some
3,000 people. The rains led to heavy flooding, exacerbated by
the fact that the sewage canals running through the streets had
not been cleaned in years, and thus clogged and were unable to
absorb the water. Eighty per cent of the city was under water for
about three days. Worse, mountains and hills deforested by
peasants who eke out their living by burning trees for charcoal
surround the city. Tons of heavy mud from these barren hillsides
filled streets, canals and buildings. There was little food or
potable water at first; people fled with only the clothes they
were wearing. Communication lines were cut and residents were
unable to reach family or friends. Three days passed before
some vehicles could enter or leave the city.
The international community responded to Jeanne. The United
Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN
OCHA) issued an emergency appeal for USD 32 million for the
affected population (MINUSTAH, 2004) and governments in
Asia, Europe and North America dispatched massive relief
assistance. United Nations (UN) agencies and dozens of nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), small and large, launched
relief operations. Humanitarian bodies already present in the
country redeployed staff to the flooded area. Thousands of
Haitians living outside of the country also raised money and
sent goods, sometimes channelling their contributions through
international relief entities.
Delivering relief assistance to Gonaives was far from easy. First,
the roads were blocked with standing water, debris and mud.
Second, would-be first responders in the city were themselves
victims of the disaster, many having lost family members and
property. Hence, they were unable to access the resources they
needed or to communicate with one another. Third, the country
already was in a state of crisis due to the political situation.
Fourth, the government was unprepared and only peripherally
involved in relief efforts.

Gonaives: the context
With the ouster of President Jean Bertrand Aristide in late
February 2004, the already high levels of violence and insecurity
in Haiti increased further. The weak transition government that
replaced Aristide was buttressed by the United Nations
Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) from the end of April,
with a mandate to restore and maintain rule of law, safety and
public order and to promote human rights. Rule of law and public

order were far from being in place at the time Jeanne struck the
Haitian coast and destroyed Gonaives. As humanitarian relief was
made available and distributed throughout the city, humanitarian
agencies had to rely on MINUSTAH’s armed presence to protect
deliveries and prevent looting.
Gonaives has seen less violence than Haiti’s capital, Port au
Prince, but it is subject to the same insecurity, corruption, crime,
unemployment and weak, ineffective government that affect the
capital and the rest of the country. It is a port city, but the
harbour has ceased to function. Overall, the town is poor,
lacking major sources of income generation, although, as in all
cities, a few people are wealthy, and there is a modestly sized
middle class. Since it is a commercial centre, and located in an
agricultural area, it has attracted newcomers from smaller
towns. A major attraction for numerous Haitian families from
these smaller towns is that Gonaives has public schools and a
larger number of private secondary schools. Families continue
to migrate and settle there for short or long periods in order to
send their children to school. Apart from Gonaives, Artibonite
Department lacks educational facilities beyond the primary
grades. The city is politically very diverse and has experienced
political violence on occasion. The general impression of the
population is one of shared frustration and cynicism regarding
government, including the possible outcomes of the elections
that were about to take place at the time of writing (January
2006). Officially, employment in the city is reported to be only
20 per cent (Oxfam, 2005) and people without full-time
employment survive by engaging in part-time occasional work
in the informal sector. Clearly, enforced idleness and minimal
opportunities to earn an income have added to frustration
among the population.
The city remains scarred to a great degree by the hurricane that
overwhelmed it on 18 September 2004; everybody’s memories
of Jeanne are acute. There are signs of reconstruction at sites all
over the town, but one finds far more indicators of the storm’s
destructive legacy. One still comes across visible signs of water
damage and semi-destroyed buildings in virtually the entire
urban area and surrounding rural and semi-rural zones. The
streets are in a deplorable condition.
A CARE-sponsored project has been working to clean the
drainage canals that run along these streets to prevent future
flooding and so there are (dangerously) deep gutters running
along the major roads. Schools, clinics and public buildings
appear to be operating normally. Most were closed for
approximately three months after the hurricane and some
previously functional health centres and schools have not
reopened. Small shops that sell food items, clothing and other
such items are busy, but an unknown number of such small
enterprises have failed to recover from the hurricane.

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Remittances in crises: Haiti

Chapter 2
The study
This study of Haiti is part of the project of the Humanitarian
Policy Group, Overseas Development Institute (ODI) to compare
three cases (Sri Lanka, Somalia and Haiti) where remittance
flows are believed to have contributed to survival and recovery.
Remittances to Haiti over the past decade have far exceeded
foreign aid or international investment. Although ongoing
research has established the value of remittances to developing
countries generally, the particular issue of their role in
emergencies has yet to be examined. This study assesses how
people in Gonaives used remittances both from the Haitian
diaspora and from internal sources during and after the city was
all but destroyed by the September 2004 hurricane. It is based
on information obtained during fieldwork in Gonaives in January
2006, and is supplemented by reports issued by international
humanitarian agencies active in the country at the time of the
disaster. The findings encompass information from recipients of
remittances in Gonaives, but not from the Haitian migrants,
either inside or outside of the country, who provided them.

worked with community organisations to manage water and
sanitation systems and to establish productive projects. These
communities, listed in Appendix 2, were selected in order to
cover:

Support for the research

Among the interviewees were people who had come to Gonaives
from other towns in Artibonite Department, either to send
children to secondary schools, which, as noted above, are lacking
in most places, and/or because they perceived commercial
opportunities to be greater. The focus groups themselves,
involving between 12 and approximately 35 people, had a fair
balance of men and women, young and old. A number of those
present actively participated in community organisations. The
researcher conducted eight structured individual interviews and
entered into around a dozen less formal conversations that
covered much the same ground. Although no two interviews were
identical, general information can be gleaned from among the
questions in Appendix 3.

ODI and the Institute for the Study of International Migration at
Georgetown University discussed the proposed research with
two major NGOs working in Haiti: CARE and Oxfam UK. Both
expressed interest in the results and offered to support the
survey logistically and substantively. This was crucial. Oxfam UK
staff based in the Port au Prince office made plans and
arrangements for the researcher’s nine-day stay in the country,
and the programme officer accompanied the researcher to
Gonaives to begin work. CARE, which still has a large project in
Gonaives, employing some 400 people, organised the actual
programme. CARE officials accompanied the researcher to six
sites where the agency has been operating and arranged for
community leaders to bring together groups for discussions.
CARE also made arrangements for interviews with remittance
transfer agencies and bank personnel. CARE and Oxfam officials
introduced the study and the researcher to those who
assembled, and translated from Creole to French. Appendix 1
contains a list of individuals who offered the most important
assistance.

Interviews
Formal interviews were held with community groups, followed
by separate interviews, which went into greater depth, with
individuals from these communities. Officials in remittance
transfer agencies and banks, Haitian local officials and NGO
officials were also interviewed about their institutional and
personal experiences.
The six neighbourhoods where groups were assembled were the
sites of ongoing CARE operations. CARE has distributed food and

• established neighbourhoods in the city;
• newer neighbourhoods whose populations are made up of a
higher percentage of people not originally from Gonaives; and
• rural agricultural communities on the outskirts of Gonaives.
The CARE officials who accompanied the researcher arranged in
advance for community leaders to bring together those who
wished to participate in a discussion of remittances. While
residents were told of the subject to be discussed, a minority of
the people who chose to attend identified themselves as
recipients of remittances from outside of the country. Virtually all
acknowledged receiving assistance from family members still in
the country.

While the interviews spanned the diverse population of Gonaives,
they undoubtedly were weighted toward the poorer segments of
the community, since these are the sectors with which CARE and
others have been working. Largely, the focus group participants
were people who had worked productively prior to the hurricane
and earned incomes that, although low, had sustained them. It
was abundantly clear that significant portions of the population,
relatively economically self-sufficient before the hurricane, were
less able than before to support themselves, due in very large
part to the losses suffered and from which they had not yet
recovered.
The interviews and conversations were not limited to the
community groups and individuals attended by CARE and other
NGOs. They also included remittance transfer agency and bank
representatives, NGO personnel, students, teachers and other
professionals—people with middle-class status based on the
income standards of the country. Middle-class salaries in a
Haitian context can be quite low. A group of teachers said that

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they received wages ranging from just below to slightly more than
USD 100 per month. Humanitarian agency workers earned
somewhat more, but given the high cost of living in Haiti, they
described themselves as barely scraping by. These groups
experienced similar losses and recounted sometimes
insurmountable difficulties in trying to recover. Whereas only a
minority of those in the focus groups said that they obtained
remittances from relatives outside of Haiti, a much larger number
of the middle-class respondents said that they received forms of
assistance from relatives outside of the country during and after
the hurricane. This is not surprising, since, as in most migrant
sending nations, the poorer segments of Haitian society lack
resources to finance migration in the first place, and those able to
migrate earn little.

Amounts and types of overseas remittances
Taken together, Haitian migrant and other transfers for 2005 are
expected to show an estimated value of USD 919 million.1 This
is a huge figure for a poor country with a population of slightly
more than eight million, but it is not disaggregated by place,
type of recipient, average amounts or intended use and it is not
limited to family remittances. According to the World Bank’s
most recent country overview, private transfers, mainly
remittances, have more than doubled from USD 256 million in
1997 to USD 650 million in 2002, representing 19 per cent of
Haiti’s gross domestic product (GDP) (World Bank, 2004, p. 3).
Already, remittances are well over 100 per cent of the value of
the nation’s exports and surpass international assistance. Most
remittance funds come from the United States,2 followed by
Canada and France. However, the monthly remittances sent by
Haitians in the US average only USD 179.3 Although significant
numbers of Haitians live in the Dominican Republic,4 Jamaica
and the Bahamas, and sacrifice their own well-being to send or
transport remittances, the amounts overall are still small.5
In a World Bank study of three countries that reported increased
remittance levels in the years immediately following a disaster,
the remittance rise in Haiti after Jeanne is the most pronounced
(World Bank, 2005, p. 100).6 Undeniably, the hurricane is not the
sole cause of this phenomenon. A brief and very modest
economic improvement in Haiti ended in the late 1990s and the
early years of the new millennium due to the political crisis and
the consequent loss of donor and investor confidence (World
Bank, 2004). Dependence on remittances has grown as the
country’s economy overall has deteriorated.
1 World development indicators and World Bank staff calculations, based on
IMF (2004). Tables in World Bank (2006) show the increasing level of
remittances following disasters. The increase in Haiti is the sharpest (World
Bank, 2005, p. 100).
2 The US census for 2000 shows the Haitian population to be just short of
420,000. Some 15–20,000 may be entering each year (United States Census
Bureau, 2000).
3 Orozco, M. et al., 2005, p. 24.
4 An estimated 600,000 Haitians live in the Dominican Republic (Orozco, M.
et al., 2005, p. 46).
5 The median amount sent from the Dominican Republic is USD 67 (Orozco,
M. et al., 2005, p. 46).
6 A table in Global Economic Prospects 2006 documents this phenomenon
for Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Honduras. The effect is
strongest for Haiti (World Bank, 2005, p. 100).

4

How much in terms of remittances normally reaches the residents
of Gonaives? Were there major increases following Jeanne?
Anecdotal evidence suggests that a fairly large number of people
in Gonaives receive remittances from different family sources,
with variable frequency, but in smaller average quantities than for
the nation as a whole. Immediately after the hurricane, family
remittances were supplemented by collective remittances.
Haitian migrants sent tens of thousands of US dollars, channelled
through relief agencies such as the American Red Cross, Caritas,
local churches and spontaneously formed relief committees.
Churches inside and outside of Haiti served as points of
transmission for private relief efforts. The research did not
uncover any ongoing collective resources destined for Gonaives.
The remittance agencies/banks interviewed (CAM, Fonkoze
(Fondasyon Kole Zepòl), Soge and UniBank7) did not disclose
the precise number of clients. A director of one of the smaller
operations in Gonaives estimated that, prior to Jeanne, he
served approximately 90 clients, who received average
payments of USD 100, which came at irregular intervals. The
number of clients, he said, grew significantly following the
hurricane. The other remittance transfer agencies confirmed
similar patterns. With a population of approximately 250,000,
not counting the semi-rural surrounding areas, it is doubtful
that the majority of families in Gonaives receive remittances of
any consequence through formal transfer channels.
In all but one of the focus groups, the majority claimed to
receive no assistance from relatives based in Canada, the US or
elsewhere, and those who did receive remittances maintained
that the amounts were insignificant. Some of the assistance
workers accompanying the project were persuaded that the
informants were not being candid about the funds they
received. This may well be the case. It is understandable that
people do not wish to talk about their sources of income in a
group setting. Nevertheless, in individual interviews where
greater confidence was established and where people agreed to
talk specifically about remittances, informants described
receiving only small amounts of money or goods and elaborated
on the difficulties their relatives faced in sending anything at all.
They also affirmed that theirs was the common situation.
Among the poorer sectors interviewed, all characterised their
overseas relatives as poorly paid, often lacking legal status or
authorisation to work in the countries to which they had gone,
and saddled with many family responsibilities. A very small
number of interviewees confirmed that they received sufficient
remittances on a regular basis to constitute livelihood support.
The amounts and mechanisms of remittance transfers to people
in Gonaives—or other places in Haiti—are complex and hard to
quantify:
• Transfer agency clients typically use different enterprises at
different times depending on the kinds of services they or
their overseas relatives need.
7 CAM is the largest of the transfer agencies working in Gonaives, followed
by UniBank. Bobby Express (the third largest) and Western Union are also
present in Gonaives, but were not interviewed.

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• In addition to remittances channelled through transfer
agencies or banks, an unknown but large amount is carried by
‘mailmen’ (facteurs), who are paid to make deliveries.
Individuals who travel overseas are expected to bring back
remittance money or goods as a favour for friends and family.
Among those working for international agencies, nearly all
have fulfilled the latter service when they have travelled.
• Both business executives buying or sending goods from
overseas and individual families sending non-cash
remittances use transfer agencies to deliver the goods.
Business executives who travel carry cash as well as large
quantities of merchandise for individuals and families as a
matter of course, and receive payment for the service.
• Likewise, business executives accept commissions from
individuals overseas to include in their commercial orders
some items meant for individuals or families. Haitians with
shops or commercial enterprises regularly ship packages of
goods by container, ranging from food to computers,
destined for private parties.
Non-cash remittances are very important to Haitian recipients. A

Remittances in crises: Haiti

high cost of living plagues Haiti, due largely to the fact that so little
is produced in the country and what is manufactured is poorly
distributed.8 Nearly everything is imported and sold at high prices.
Hence, it is reportedly less costly to ship common items needed on
a daily basis, such as clothing, oil, rice, salt, shoes and spaghetti,
than to buy them in Haiti. Remittance transfer agencies have
commercial affiliates and/or stores in communities with strong
migrant populations and own other shops in Haiti, so that goods
are moved efficiently. Live animals are an important component of
remittance transfers, especially at holiday time.9
As will be shown below, during and following Jeanne, non-cash
items were prevalent and highly valued.
8 A June 2004 report by the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) cited UN OCHA and CARE studies confirming high
prices for basic commodities, due to political instability and theft (USAID,
2004).
9 According to Barbabe Ndarishikanye, CAM and Bobby Express annually
ship goods worth approximately USD 2 million between Canada and Haiti
(Ndarishikanye, B., 2005, p. 148). The popular practice of sending live
animals to Haitian relatives at Christmas is described in Millman and
Chozick, 2005.

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Remittances in crises: Haiti

Chapter 3
Cyclone Jeanne: the first phase
The hurricane caused incalculable losses in relation to lives and
property and for at least two months, the population was in dire
need. Many slept on their roof or on that of their neighbour, or
crowded together in the few buildings left relatively intact.
Immediately after the storm, the CARE office, which was on
higher ground than most buildings, became home to some 600
people.10 On 5 October, CARE President Peter Bell reported that
400 people remained at this relatively protected and wellstocked compound—many stayed for as long as two months. A
private secondary school, also situated on high enough ground
largely to escape damage, took in 1,200 people—school
students, school staff and their families and people from the
surrounding area—and maintained this ‘refuge’ for 23 days.
Intact churches and public buildings also sheltered thousands
of flood victims. Until people were able return to their homes,
they had to be fed and clothed and provided with sanitation
facilities. International relief funds allowed these needs to be
met. All of the neighbourhood groups reported several people
who had lost their homes entirely and had left Gonaives to
return to their place of origin or to live with family members
elsewhere. Reportedly, only a few have returned.
Once the water receded, city residents had to find a way of
removing the mud and debris that filled their houses and
replacing the contents of their homes, which had been ruined
beyond use. Very few earned an income during this time, as
markets, offices, schools and services were no longer
functioning. Numerous families, therefore, lacked the money to
make their homes habitable.
Public services in the city also were slow to return. An American
Friends Service Committee (AFSC) report of November 2004,
written two months after the disaster, noted that major roads
were still impassable and standing water was everywhere
(AFSC, 2004). At that time, Gonaives government officials told
the AFSC that three million cubic metres of mud and rubbish still
filled the streets. (At the time of writing (January 2006), city
streets are clear, but an ‘artificial lake’ still transects the
national highway leading into the city.)
With communication systems not working, the affected
population could not reach family members outside of
Gonaives, or even check on loved ones within the affected area.
Relatives ready to help, including those outside of the country,
had no way of knowing what had happened or what was
needed. Landlines were down for about three months. Haitian
telephone companies worked around the clock and after a few
days were able to restore limited telephone and internet
services to major clients and a few institutions. Otherwise,
individuals with working mobile telephones left the city as soon
10 Interview with Jouthe Joseph, CARE Director, Gonaives.

as they could and walked several kilometres to reach the
nearest town where there was electricity and reception. A
stream of people made the journey and placed repeated calls to
their own family members and to those of friends and
neighbours. The aforementioned school where students had
taken refuge was one of the institutions to regain internet
access after approximately three days. The schoolchildren were
given 10 minutes each to send e-mails, at a charge of two US
dollars. Gonaives residents with access to communications
called or e-mailed everywhere looking for help, including Cap
Haitien, Jacmel and Port au Prince, as well as Miami, Montreal,
New York and Paris. If they reached one relative, he/she was
told to contact others near and far. They supplied family news,
recounted personal and material losses, and asked for money
and goods. They made arrangements for the delivery of
remittance money and goods to locations outside of Gonaives.
Interviewees reported travelling to other cities where family and
friends took them in until the items arrived.
Communication was especially difficult for people living in rural
areas where isolation was more pronounced. Farmers who grew
crops and raised animals were less likely than urban dwellers to
have access to mobile telephones; with all other forms of
communication damaged by the storm, they could not call for
outside help when the floods came.
People in the rural communities waited longer than those in
town for the roads surrounding their land to become passable
enough for relief to be delivered. Donors and relief agencies
eventually opened roads and brought food, water and other
basic essentials. They did little in the early stage to repair
damage to land or to replace farm animals. Facing ruin, the
people in the rural areas around Gonaives began leaving in
large numbers, and have been doing so increasingly ever since.
Before the hurricane, however, this area was one of the most
fertile in Haiti and was reasonably prosperous. According to
informants, few had wished to leave their land prior to Jeanne.
Ironically, the fact that these small landowners had been
relatively well off and therefore contributed less to migration
than most of the country meant that they had a smaller pool of
outside family resources to draw on when disaster struck.
At the time of the hurricane, people working in Gonaives and
supporting relations in their place of origin or elsewhere had to
turn to these same relatives for help. Many victims of the
hurricane returned to the places they had left, because they no
longer could support themselves, much less others, in
Gonaives. A few families interviewed had sent their children to
live with relatives and to go to school in other Caribbean
nations, but due to the hurricane, they could no longer support
them. One informant’s daughter in school in the Bahamas
withdrew money for her living expenses to send to her parents

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in Haiti. The family with which she was living continued to take
care of her, although they could not expect any contributions
from her now impoverished parents. Hence, the suffering the
storm inflicted on the population of Gonaives was augmented
by a loss of income in the surrounding region.
Family members throughout Haiti drew on their own resources
and channelled remittances to relatives in Gonaives. Hundreds
made their way there, bearing what they could to ease the
suffering. Cash was most useful, but it was hard to find goods to
buy. People tried to carry essential clothing, food and
household goods. In one sad case, a woman recounted how her
sister spent days on the road carrying badly needed food items,
only to find there was no charcoal to cook the food. The family
set burned one of the few undamaged chairs and cooked the
food over the fire.
Staff working in the remittance transfer agencies in Gonaives
experienced similar deprivation as the rest of the population. The
managers interviewed asserted with pride the lengths they, their
local staff and the central offices had gone to facilitate
communication between victims and their relatives overseas, and
to arrange for cash and in-kind deliveries to be made to locations
outside of Gonaives. They reported leaving their own flooded
homes in order to open their still partially flooded offices within
three days and, with the help of local telephone companies, to
restore internet links. (Normal telephone and electronic
communications were re-established after three months.)
With the collaboration of the central offices in Port au Prince,
remittance transfer agencies arranged for payments bound for
Gonaives to be sent to the capital or another city. Because
banks in Gonaives could not receive wire transfers, considerable
sums of money were transported by air or other means into the
city and then delivered by hand. Some of the would-be
recipients of the payments could not be found, either because
they had perished in the storm or because their homes were
gone. A remittance agency official described a typical case of
trying to deliver by hand cash that he had received from his
office in Port au Prince to a house in Gonaives that had been
destroyed. He learned from neighbours that the recipient had
gone to Port au Prince. With their help, the agency tracked down
the individual and the Port au Prince office delivered the money.
Another enterprise told clients to make their way (by foot,
presumably) to the nearest town a few kilometres away, where
managers had rented buses to pick them up and take them to a
larger community some 40 kilometres away. There, they made
free telephone calls and arranged for money transfers to be
sent. All of the remittance companies cut transfer fees wholly or

8

partly after the storm, restoring them approximately one month
later. Recipients of remittances were not necessarily impressed
by these efforts, but did acknowledge that the remittance
agency staff had been willing to bend the rules in their favour.
The research for this review did not encompass a systematic
assessment of the work of the international community in
bringing relief to the victims of Jeanne. It is fair to say, though,
that there was a strong international response immediately
after the hurricane, which inevitably fell far short of meeting
needs. Donor governments released emergency funds and
within a few days, several hundred missions from all over the
world were on the scene. Funding was made available for
disaster reconstruction undertaken by agencies based in Asia,
Europe and the US. The United Nations Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fund
(UNICEF) cleaned, repaired and rebuilt some 50 schools and
distributed educational material (UNICEF, 2004). The World
Food Program (WFP), working through CARE, distributed 6,200
metric tons of food (WFP, 2005). The largest NGOs to act during
the first month were CARE (which already had a large
programme based in Gonaives), Oxfam, World Vision
International, Catholic Relief Services, MĂŠdecins Sans
FrontiĂ¨res (MSF), the International Federation of Red Cross and
Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the International Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC). Other agencies soon followed: Action
Against Hunger; the Pan American Development Foundation
(PADF); the Cooperative Housing Foundation (CHF)
International; the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC);
and multiple small, often church-based, entities. CARE targeted
its large stocks of food and other material at hurricane relief;
Oxfam mounted airlifts, transporting tons of potable water and
sanitation equipment, enough water for 20,000 people per day
(Oxfam, 2004); the other agencies supplied emergency relief
and health care. The Artibonite Department government worked
with them and tried to coordinate the assistance effort.
Physical problems concerning access combined with continuing
violence exacerbated by the ouster of Aristide and an entirely
ineffective local police force hindered outside help. Not only did
humanitarian agencies need the protection of armed MINUSTAH
troops to access the stocks in their Port au Prince warehouses,
but rampant insecurity made road travel between the capital
and Gonaives hazardous. MINUSTAH peacekeepers said that
several Gonaives neighbourhoods were too dangerous for food
distributions, and accompanied the dissemination teams to
most locations. The recently installed Haitian transitional
government left virtually the entire response to the hurricane to
international agencies, relying on external support and private
resources.

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Remittances in crises: Haiti

Chapter 4
Cyclone Jeanne: the aftermath
Between the September storm and the end of November, CARE
received funds to undertake massive food distribution
throughout the city and rural areas. Thereafter, the food
distribution was targeted at vulnerable groups: families that
had lost the breadwinner; families that had lost their homes;
women-headed households; and families with more than five
children. The targeted initiative covered more than 17,000
families, whereas prior to the hurricane the caseload had been
about 1,000 families.11 The figure has yet to return to pre-Jeanne
levels, because of higher unemployment, higher prices and
consequently, more malnutrition.
The majority of people interviewed, whether richer or poorer,
reported that they had not yet been able to repair their homes
adequately; they were still replacing lost furniture and other
property one piece at a time. Moreover, since they have not
been able to recover lost commercial or private property or to
replace vehicles, farm animals and other structural inputs that
were essential to their prior economic activity, many have lost
the ability to earn the incomes that previously paid for health
care and kept their children in school. In the past, those who
received remittances from abroad were likely to use them to
meet school and health expenses or to buy merchandise or
tools for an income-generating activity. Following the hurricane,
they had to use the resources that came their way to make
repairs, replace items and buy basic goods for their families. For
those now able to work and earn an income, remittances are
used as before. For the many informants who complained that
they presently earn a fraction of what they had done before, or
nothing at all, outside remittances and help from extended
family inside the country constitute their primary means of
survival.
Within three months to one year, the majority of the
international relief agencies left Gonaives. That period saw a
string of hurricanes that left victims all over the Caribbean and
stretched relief resources. Without doubt, the 24 December
2004 tsunami in South Asia drew international resources from
the Haitian disaster.
While the assistance received from international agencies and
NGOs addressed the major initial needs of a large number of
Haitian victims, funding for assistance projects was withdrawn
before they reached large portions of the beneficiary
population. Some families received a new roof from CHF or
another agency, while others did not; some families could send
their children back to repaired or rebuilt schools, but no
international agency was available to reconstruct other schools.
Various agencies and governments furnished seeds and tools
for agricultural areas, but a formerly productive agricultural
community visited by this interviewer some 15 months after the
11 Interview with CARE representatives, Gonaives, 10 January 2006.

storm, received only a fraction of what was required. In another,
similar community, residents were still seeking outside help to
repair the damaged water system and to restore latrines.
Despite international responses and the important interventions of a number of NGOs and international agencies, the
affected parties have had to meet a large proportion of the
repair and recovery costs. These costs, already noted, include
first removing mud, then replacing lost clothing and satisfying
other basic needs, repairing damage to walls, roofs and
windows, and, finally, replacing tools, vehicles and animals.
Simply to remove the mud requires hiring teams with special
equipment, and paying from USD 20 (for a one-room dwelling)
to hundreds of US dollars depending on the size of the house.
These expenses came at a time when most people were
receiving no income. Not surprisingly, the infrastructure damage
to water and irrigation systems, latrines and access roads that
relief agencies did not repair soon after the hurricane, has, for
the most part, not been addressed to date.12
Remittance money eased the burden of paying for recovery
necessities, but the grateful recipients faced difficult choices.
For example, a woman whose Miami-based relatives usually
sent USD 50 in remittances once or twice a year, received only
an extra USD 10 after the hurricane. In normal times, the
woman, who earned a small income herself by raising animals,
would use the USD 50 to buy food. Because of the hurricane,
she had to use the cash to purchase straw to replace the roof on
her house. The hurricane, moreover, claimed the lives of the
animals, so she lost income from that source. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;I ate badly this
yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, she said.
In an interview with 10 secondary-school students currently
attending a private institution, the majority said that
remittances were responsible for the payment of their fees.
According to the students, these remittances are primarily from
uncles and aunts in Canada and the US. Their parents, still in
Haiti, earn far too little to afford to keep them in school. At the
time of the hurricane, the relatives who were supporting them
sent extra money for the families. One girl, though, reported
that her parents confronted a dilemma because the amount
sent was not sufficient to repair their badly damaged home and
to cover school fees. Thus, they postponed the repairs. Others
in the room nodded in agreement, indicating that their families
faced similar choices.
In the poorer communities, and especially in the rural farming
areas, school attendance fell after the storm, and families
12 The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) was
reportedly considering repairing the irrigation system in the agricultural
community of La Brande, but at best, the FAO repairs will be unable to cover
over a 100 of the farmers in the community.

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reported that their children still could not return to school.
Some local primary schools have not been rebuilt, and many
families do not have the money to pay for appropriate clothing
or supplies, much less to send their children to schools located
further away. Most of the secondary schools of which Gonaives
is proud are privately operated. When the private schools
reopened after the storm, they had fewer students.

little more. They do not consider themselves to have recovered
their prior income-generating capacity. In a few cases, however,
even small remittances from relatives provided soon after the
hurricane have made a critical difference. For example, the
Canada-based handicapped sister of a woman sent garments
that she could sell after the hurricane destroyed her shop. With
the money, she could repair the shop.

The prices of basic goods rose following the hurricane, and
consumption levels fell. More than 97 per cent of respondents
in an Oxfam survey conducted in early 2005 indicated that
business (commerce) had diminished in Gonaives since Jeanne,
and more than 98 per cent asserted that basic goods had
become expensive or very expensive. Merchants, who had to
pay more than before for the stocks they had lost, had fewer
customers. They therefore raised prices further in an attempt to
make ends meet (Oxfam, 2005, pp. 3â&#x20AC;&#x201C;4). When asked about the
cause of the decline in business activity, 80 per cent pointed to
a general lack of cash in the economy. Thirteen per cent blamed
the storm directly, but close to 64 per cent traced the rising
prices to the time of Jeanne (Oxfam, 2005, pp. 5â&#x20AC;&#x201C;6, 11). The
report calculated that reliance on commercial activity as a
means of earning income fell by 34 per cent, and dependence
on agriculture declined by 46 per cent. By contrast, the
proportion of the population of Gonaives relying on donations
from relatives and others rose by 156 per cent: from 12.5 to 31.7
per cent (Oxfam, 2005, p. 11).

Women in rural areas and some on the outskirts of town reported
having earned money by raising pigs, goats or other small animals.
Few of the animals survived and women who were formerly selfsufficient now are destitute. One example is the aforementioned
woman who received USD 50 per year a year in remittances. The
pittance she got was of less importance while she had animals to
rear and sell. Now, she has little else. In rural areas, the women
who raised animals not only had income of their own, but also they
participated in community cooperatives as paying members.
These cooperatives are decision-making bodies for the
communities and serve to organise collective projects, such as the
repair of irrigation canals and the construction of latrines. Unable
to pay the fees for the cooperatives, such women have lost
benefits and a voice in community affairs. The researcher was told
that many women heads of families and some women with intact
families who used to raise animals are now moving to the cities to
work as maids. Similarly, men who owned land ruined by the storm
are now employed as labourers.

One cannot underestimate the impact of lost livelihoods. For at
least three months, most employees were without jobs and
consequently without income. Slowly, commerce has recovered,
and salaried employment has resumed, but the economy of
Gonaives overall is fragile and wages are very low. A number of
interviewees who previously had full-time occupations say that
now, they are able to find only part-time or piecemeal work. It
appears, moreover, that women are suffering the greatest
hardship.
The major source of income in Gonaives city is commercial
activity, primarily by small establishments selling household
items or food. Predominantly, women run these enterprises.
Female-headed households survive on buying and selling; men
who are artisans, farmers or construction workers have wives
who run a small shop or a food stall and supplement the family
income. Repeatedly, the interviewees identified the loss of
commercial goods and property as the major impediment to
recovery. CARE, CHF and PADF briefly operated a small asset
restoration project that replaced commercial goods lost in the
flood and gave women credit to buy new items. By their own
account, the project was short-lived and its beneficiaries
relatively few. Other NGOs not interviewed apparently engaged
in similar small-scale activities, but buying replacement goods
and rebuilding shops and stalls was not a key donor priority
after the storm. Now with most international agencies gone or
on the verge of departing, it is highly unlikely that much more
help of this nature will be forthcoming. The women interviewed
reported making efforts to salvage business by buying a few
items at a time, selling these at a small profit, and purchasing a

10

In Haiti, as elsewhere, women are predominant among the
beneficiaries of micro credit projects and have been exemplary
in repaying their debts. Because of the hurricane, Fonkoze, a
well-known transfer and micro credit operation, cancelled
interest payments for September through December 2004, and
granted new lines of credit.13 Regular interest payments are now
in effect. Although much commercial and agricultural property
was never recovered, groups of women are seeking new forms
of credit. Fonkoze official believe these women to be remittance
recipients.
An important and unfortunate consequence of the hurricane in
Gonaives is outmigration of large numbers of residents. As
already noted, city residents who had come to Gonaives from
smaller towns in the region to work or attend school often
returned to their place of origin when homes were lost and the
means of earning a living disappeared. Opportunities for
employment or education are poorer in the small towns than in
Gonaives. Residents and former residents of Gonaives have
joined in ever-growing numbers the massive influx of Haitians to
the capital city, Port au Prince, a city already unable to provide
jobs, security or services for its swollen population. And, more
than ever, people from Gonaives, especially young people, try to
leave the country.
Immigration and illegal entry to Canada and the US have
become progressively more difficult. Informants reported that
they considered this option to be impossible. They understood
that if they successfully entered illegally, they might find
13 Interview at Fonkoze, 8 January 2006.

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themselves in economic conditions almost as bad as those in
Haiti, with additional debts associated with their passage. The
Bahamas and the Dominican Republic still attract Haitian
migrants from Gonaives, most of whom reach these
destinations illegally, and usually with disappointing outcomes.
The young people, predominant among the migrants, rarely
send money back or do so irregularly. Those with family still in
Haiti reportedly do manage to send something, until they are
able to join them.
The exodus from the once prosperous agricultural land that has
ceased to support the population that lives there is especially
troubling. As it stands, Haiti grows only a fraction of the food

Remittances in crises: Haiti

that it consumes and exports are minimal. In the region visited,
farmers were still growing fruit, rice and vegetables, but at
levels far below those prior to the storm because of the loss of
irrigation systems and other agricultural inputs. Rain has been
scarce in 2005. NGO projects have helped, but not enough to
rescue the land. As farmers now abandon the land and join the
masses in the inhospitable cities of Haiti or become unwelcome
migrants in the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic, not only
do they lose out, but the country as a whole suffers. They will no
longer be contributing to the Haitian economy as before; the
country will need to import more food and will lose potential
export income. Groups in three rural communities reported the
largest exodus in their memory.

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Remittances in crises: Haiti

Chapter 5
Summary of findings: solidarity and assistance
The researcher was well received and people readily responded
to her questions about what had happened to them during and
after the hurricane, the means they had found to survive and
the assistance they had received—or not received. They
described the horrors they had endured and noted exactly the
number of days that passed before they were able to contact
family members. They recalled when CARE, Oxfam or the Red
Cross had first appeared with some form of help. In addition,
they spoke in detail of how they managed to communicate with
relatives outside of Haiti. The majority who gathered for the
discussion described assistance received in the wake of Jeanne
from their neighbours, family members and friends in the
country. They emphasised that Haiti was a country based on
family and community solidarity in times of crisis. They
recounted how their own family members had travelled from
nearby towns and from Port au Prince to bring food, clothing
and other types of assistance. However, as noted, and
somewhat to the surprise of this researcher, they played down
the significance of support from outside sources.
It appears that while family remittances from outside the country
were critical to those who received them following the hurricane,
large segments of the population did not and do not receive
them, at least not directly. After the storm, though, nearly
everyone received what may be called internal remittances, that
is, material help from family members in Haiti. A large number
among these internal sources undoubtedly benefited from
remittances sent by migrant relatives. Money from Haitian
migrants has poured in, but it continues to be spread very thin
among an already poor and now destitute population.
The previously cited food security survey by Oxfam asked
beleaguered urban traders about coping strategies: it found the
primary method to be by far family support (Oxfam, 2005, p. 4).
The impact of remittances from all sources must be examined in
the context of Haitian family ties and survival strategies. A
typical remittance payment of USD 100 per month (lower in
Gonaives than in the country overall) does not go far because of
widespread, wrenching poverty, compounded by the high cost
of living in Haiti. Nearly every person who receives money from
overseas is responsible for several others. Most of the time,
families share remittances. An individual in Port au Prince who
gets remittances from Miami or Montreal will probably send a
portion of the funds to other relatives. It is reasonable to
assume, therefore, that help reaching Gonaives after the
hurricane from relatives in Port au Prince (or elsewhere in Haiti)
actually represented, in part, remittances sent to the latter from
overseas. In the case of Gonaives, which has a large number of
people from other towns in the region, remittance recipients
normally share whatever they earn or acquire among family
members near and far. Nearly everyone interviewed did so to a
greater or lesser extent. Alternatively, people who have settled

in Gonaives in order to benefit from schools for their children
may get help from other family members in their place of origin.

The Haitian diaspora, as portrayed
The Haitian diaspora is large and generous. It includes
significant numbers of professionals and persons of moderate
to high level income, primarily in the US and Canada, and
especially among those who have come as political refugees.
Gonaives, though, is a city with few economic resources, and
the migrants it generates are likely to struggle to survive in their
host country. Informants’ stories are illustrative:14
• A man who had depended for his livelihood on buying and
transporting small items for sale lost both his car and
motorcycle in the storm, besides suffering damage to his
home and losing personal property. He had a brother in the
Bahamas who was only able to send some beans, cooking
oil and rice immediately after the hurricane. Hoping to do
better, the same brother moved to Miami illegally, but found
himself in a worse situation and in 2005 sent nothing.
• A man whose mobile telephone still operated after the hurricane went to Port au Prince and called his sister in Miami to
reassure her that he and his family had survived and to ask for
help. While there, he rang the relatives of several of his neighbours in Canada and the US. These calls resulted in several
remittance transfers, with which he purchased essential
provisions to bring back to all. His sister also sent some money,
but as she had a large family in Miami and a low paying job, the
amount covered little more than his trip expenses.
• A young person of 17 left his semi-rural community and
along with most people of his age, went to the Dominican
Republic. Within a year, he was home. He reported in an
interview that at best, he and the others were able to find
part-time and occasional work at subsistence wages. The
young people shared among themselves but had nothing to
send back to their parents. He reported suffering the
misfortune of being wrongly blamed for a robbery that
resulted in an accidental death. He fled across the border to
Haiti, and was unemployed at the time of the interview.
• A teacher whose house was destroyed received some
assistance from relatives in Port au Prince and abroad. What
she got paid only for a portion of the repairs. She was
unable to reach her husband, in the United States, for over a
week. He did not return to Gonaives as arranged, because of
the dire situation. He now sends her small amounts of
money on a monthly basis.
Remittances flow in both directions and migration may be a cost
rather than a benefit. As noted, informants are supporting
children in schools outside of Haiti—Cuba has become a
14 Interview at Fonkoze, 8 January 2006.

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popular destination because the schools are of high quality and
cost less than those situated elsewhere. Families reported
using remittance funds to pay for other relatives to leave, and
contributing to their livelihoods for some time after they arrived.
Working adults frequently leave their children with extended
family members in Haiti while they try to earn money overseas
to send back. One of the informants claimed to have 17 children
in his care: 12 from two cousins in the Bahamas and his own
family of five. The cousins, who had not yet legalised their
status, did not have regular jobs and had sent nothing for the
children. He hoped they eventually would be able to do so. The
informant supports the family through part-time jobs in
construction and has not yet been able to repair much of the
damage done to his house by Jeanne.

14

The aftermath of Jeanne has had a positive impact in terms of
placing new attention on disaster management and disaster
preparedness. Government officers, NGO staff and community
members affirmed that they had learned lessons from the
storm and had taken steps to avoid the kind of flooding caused
by Jeanne. Infrastructure has been somewhat improved and
committees have been established in most of the affected
communities that are prepared to take the lead in future. The
NGOs have undertaken a few, although not enough, training
courses on disaster preparedness. Nevertheless, the
continuing erosion of the hillsides and the fact that far too
many poor Haitians burn trees for charcoal because that is
their only source of income will exacerbate the effects of the
next storm.

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Remittances in crises: Haiti

Chapter 6
Conclusion
The study findings lead to the conclusion that migrant
remittances from outside Haiti were one element of what might
be termed a ‘chain of solidarity’ among neighbours, relatives
still in the country, international humanitarian agencies that
came to the city to help, and overseas relatives. All links in this
chain remain essential. The results strongly suggest that while
remittances overall play an important role in the lives of
individuals in Gonaives, they yield only small improvements in
the quality of life and do not relieve poverty. Those interviewed
for this study reported very small increments in the cash
remittances they received post Jeanne, although they
apparently received considerable in-kind transfers in the form of
clothing, food and other necessities.15 None of the informants
cited the Haitian government as an important player in the relief
or recovery effort, but some local officials apparently worked
hard to complement and coordinate the activities of
international agencies and NGOs working in Gonaives.
Some small steps that could have been taken to facilitate
remittance flows, and should be considered in planning for
future disasters, are listed below:
• Haitians, even poor Haitians, are used to communicating
with relatives in distant places. As reported here, at the time
of the storm, the ability to communicate with relatives had
life-saving consequences. In this age of satellite telephones
and sophisticated information technology, it seems
reasonable to assume that relief agencies and international
organisations could have made it easier to communicate in
Gonaives. Remittances and other kinds of assistance that
families can offer to victims of a disaster depend on the
ability of both sides to exchange information.
• In view of the fact that families were essential components in
the ‘chain of solidarity’ in Gonaives, donors and relief
agencies could consider placing some resources (for example
the non-cash donations that so often go undistributed) in the
hands of those with relatives in the affected zones, and
helping nearby family members to reach these zones.
Although this cannot be orchestrated easily in the emergency
15 US census data for 2000 puts the median earnings for males at USD
25,800, for females at 22,200, the poverty level among Haitians at 34 per
cent, 34.4 per cent not in the labour force and 56.6 per cent who were not
citizens. It is not correlated for place of origin or time spent in the US. The
total population in 2000 was 419,315. It has grown over the past five years,
and now probably includes a greater number of individuals fleeing
economic misery.

phase, and would require some organised entity to work with
families, it is worth consideration. This would not and should
not diminish international relief or remove the spontaneous
response of families to their relatives in the wake of disaster.
It would, however, help to buttress poor families with only
their own meagre resources to share.
• Many Haitians extended help to disaster victims via
charitable organisations and churches. The process was
spontaneous. There was little planning within the Haitian
diaspora regarding the eventual use of the funds they
collected. They were, of course, well aware of the multiple
needs of their relatives and friends. They were not in a
position, though, to ensure that their donations would be
put to the best use. Donor governments and charitable
bodies in Canada, France, the US and other countries with
large Haitian populations could improve disaster response
overall through closer collaboration with organised migrants
who have pledged to supply relief to their homeland.
As underlined at several points in this report, funds channelled
to help victims recover livelihoods are essential for recovery.
The fact that neither remittances nor international humanitarian
assistance was adequate for this purpose has destroyed the
future prospects of countless families, and has left the nation as
a whole even poorer.
Remittances are obviously not addressing the larger problems
confronting Haiti. Nor can the remittance flows to Gonaives after
the hurricane be credited with having stimulated recovery.
Individual families received vital help from relatives, but the all
too limited recovery that occurred is due primarily to
international humanitarian assistance. The conditions that
exacerbated the flooding and destruction in Gonaives remain
and have got worse. The government is universally described as
among the most corrupt in the world, and provides minimal
services to its population. For instance, two major areas that
receive remittance funds in non-disaster times are education
and health care, services that should benefit from government
input and not depend on such transfers. Haitian GDP at the
close of 2003 was USD 361, with more than 65 per cent of the
population living below the poverty line (World Bank, 2004, p.
1). The years 2004 and 2005 have been characterised by
political and economic crisis, pushing the population even
deeper into poverty. The Haitian diaspora provides a lifeline to
its compatriots, but it is too slender in normal times, and much
less so in the face of a disaster.

General questions on which interviews were based
On Hurricane Jeanne
1. Experiences
2. Assistance
3. Did families maintain contact with those outside Haiti?
4. Which groups were most badly affected?
5. Permanent changes, damages, improvements
6. How were goods meant for communities distributed?

On Migration
1. Extent of migration from the community/city
2. Sectors most likely to migrate (economic status, gender, age
etc)
3. Where people usually went and why
4. Obstacles to migration
5. Migration as direct result of Jeanne or combined with other
motives
6. Migration patterns since Jeanne
7. Covering costs of migration
8. How money for migration is raised
9. Changes over time.
On Remittances
1. How do the remittance transfer agencies operate? what
services to they provide
2. What happened to people who had no family members
outside the country?
3. Approximately what percent of people in the groups receive
remittances from sources outside or inside the country?
4. How many family members send remittances on a regular
basis?
5. What assistance came directly as a result of Jeanne? From
where?
6. Apart from money, what did family members send during
and after Jeanne?
7. How many other people are being supported by the
informant?
8. How have remittances been used toward recovery from
damage caused by Jeanne?
9. What are the major uses of remittances received at present?
10. Were remittances used specifically to fund out-migration of
family members?
11. What are expectations regarding remittances from people
who have left or are planning to leave?
12. What remittance transfer company does informant use and
why?